Warriors in Peace Operations - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

trains per day to that point, thus vindicating the original
planning figure given us.
Ideally, the way the system should have worked is for the
division planners to have told someone (presumably 21st
TAACOM, since much of the V Corps staff was deploying to
assume the role of USAREUR Forward in Hungary) what
the required delivery dates (RDDs) for each unit were. Then
the deployment headquarters, again presumably 21st
TAACOM, would develop and issue a deployment plan
which included transportation mode, load, and pull dates to
achieve those RDDs. Unit TC-ACCS data would be used to
determine transportation requirements, and all necessary
STANAGs and other documents would be produced by the
deploying headquarters (again, 21st TAACOM).
Instead, the division collaboratively developed “the flow”
with 21st TAACOM and V Corps. Company-level units
manually filled out STANAGs (TC-ACCS data could not be
converted into JOPES or other usable automated data) and
other documents. I am not aware of any headquarters that
issued a complete deployment plan. It certainly was not
readily available or used extensively, if it was, in fact,
issued.
The command and control of deployment was equally
confusing, which is why I believe Major General Nash gave
us the mission to create the Deployment Operations Center
using 2-67 Armor’s staff. Movement Control Teams were
under the control of 21st TAACOM and were notified of the
scheduled trains and units for the various railheads. Often,
the MCTs would notify the company-level unit directly.
Additionally, Area Support Groups were notified of trains,
who notified Base Support Battalions, who notified units,
often at battalion or brigade level. Sometimes, units were
issued copies of the “flow” from the division headquarters.
Often, because of the number of changes taking place,
particular units received conflicting instructions. This led to
a lot of confusion.
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